Part 138

BAGDAD RAILROAD.--The most important step in the industrial progress of Turkey in modern times is the concession for the construction of the Bagdad Railroad, which, when completed, will connect the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf.

By a provisional convention, preference was given to a German company in 1903. England had a particular interest in the proposed scheme, as the line suggested would provide a short route to India; accordingly, in 1903, the British government objected to the railway being placed under German control, and discussion followed with a view to putting the line under international control. By the agreement of 1903 it was decided the German group should control forty per cent of the capital, the French, through the Imperial Ottoman Bank, thirty per cent, the Austrian, Italian, Swiss, and Turkish twenty per cent, and the Anatolian Railway ten per cent. In 1904, one hundred and twenty-four miles of the line were completed, from Konieh, through Eregli, to Bugurlu. In 1908 sanction was given to extend the line eastwards from Bugurlu across the Taurus to Adana.

The total length of the line will be one thousand five hundred and fifty miles and will run through Aintab and Berejik to Mosul, thence along the right bank of the Tigris to Bagdad.

THE CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA

Since the beginning of the sixteenth century America has been the general name for the two continents and adjacent islands, forming the main body of land found in the western hemisphere.

=Position and Extent.=--North America forms the northern section of the “New World” discovered by Columbus. It is separated from Europe by a sea nine hundred and thirty miles broad, from Asia by Bering Strait sixty miles across, and extends from the Arctic Ocean nearly to the equator.

The main mass is triangular in shape, and its outline varied by large peninsulas, broad gulfs and numerous inlets. Development of coast-line, twenty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty miles. Length, four thousand five hundred miles; breadth, three thousand one hundred miles. The area of the continental mainland is estimated at seven million one hundred and forty-six thousand six hundred and forty-one square miles; the entire area, including Greenland, the Arctic Archipelago, the West Indies, Newfoundland, and other islands, at over nine million square miles.

=Islands.=--It is customary to regard Greenland as a part of America, while the adjacent island of Iceland, though partially in the western hemisphere, is usually associated with Europe. The other principal American islands in the Atlantic are Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Anticosti, Prince Edward Island, Long Island, the Bermudas, the Antilles or West Indies, Joannes, Staten Island and South Georgia.

In the Pacific are the Aleutian Islands, Kadiak, the Alexander and Queen Charlotte groups, Vancouver and other British-Columbian Islands, the Santa Barbara group, Bevilla-Gigedo, the Pearl Islands, and others in the Gulf of Panama, the Galápagos, Juan Fernandez and the associated islets, Chiloe and the Chonos Archipelago. In the Arctic Ocean there are many large but unimportant islands. (See Map of Comparative Size of Islands and Table of Areas.)

=Coast-line.=--The coast-line of North America on the west is almost everywhere high and rocky. To the south of Puget Sound good harbors are rare, but British Columbia and Alaska have great numbers of good seaports, the coast-line being, in many places, deeply cut with high-walled fjords, or “canals,” and elsewhere sheltered by ranges of high and well-wooded islands. The Atlantic coast, north of New York Bay, is generally rocky and well sheltered with islands, and has abundance of good natural harbors; but south of the parallel of New York the coast of the mainland is almost everywhere low and sandy. Many of the best ports are formed by river-mouths, and have sandbars across their entrances. Nowhere else in the world is there any such extent of low and sandy coast as on the Atlantic and Gulf seaboards of the United States.

=Surface.=--The western mountain-system of North America comprises a very great number of minor ranges, mostly having a north and south direction. The main chain (Sierra Madre) cannot be said to preserve an unmistakable identity throughout. The Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade Mountains are the most noted of the western parallel ranges; they all lie on the Pacific slope, and contain some of the highest of North American peaks. The elevated plateau called the Great Basin (chiefly in Utah and Nevada), contains the Great Salt Lake and several smaller bodies of strongly saline water, evidently the remains of a much larger lake which once sent its waters to the sea. The eastern or great Appalachian mountain-system has a general direction nearly parallel with the Atlantic coast-line.

North of the St. Lawrence River is seen the vast and complicated Laurentian mountain-system, which extends from the Atlantic westward to near Lake Superior.

The highest summits are Mt. McKinley, in the north; Mt. Harvard, in the Rocky mountains; Mt. Whitney, in the Sierra Nevadas; and Mt. Popocatepetl or Peak of Orizaba, in Mexico. (See Tables of Mountain Peaks.)

=Rivers and Lakes.=--In the Rocky Mountain region of Canada, the great rivers, Yukon, Fraser, Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Mackenzie, take their rise. Between these mountains and Hudson Bay, a girdle of vast lakes, or inland seas (Great Bear, Great Slave, Athabasca, Deer Lake, Winnipeg, and others), form a regular succession running from the Arctic Circle to Lake Superior, the first of a wonderful chain of great sea-like expansions of the Upper St. Lawrence (the others being Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario). North of the St. Lawrence system almost the whole country is thickly studded with lakes, which, with their connecting streams, form a network of important waterways traversable by canoes and boats.

The Atlantic slope of the United States is well supplied with water, and many of its streams afford extensive navigation. The Hudson is noted for its fine scenery; the Potomac is one of the noblest of American rivers; and important streams flowing to the Atlantic are the St. John, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Merrimac, the Connecticut, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the James, and the St. John’s, nearly all navigable in their lower courses.

The chief rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico are the Appalachicola, the Mobile, the Pearl, the great Mississippi, the Sabine, the Trinity, the Brazos, the Colorado of Texas and the Rio Grande.

Of the many large Alaskan rivers the principal are the Yukon and the Kuskoquim. The Fraser is a swift and strong river; the great river Columbia is noted alike for its navigation, its salmon fisheries, and its enormous cataracts. The Rio Colorado, whose waters flow to the Gulf of California, traverses a desert plateau. Here nearly every watercourse runs in a deep-walled cañon, a narrow valley with precipitous sides, often of prodigious height.

In the plateau of Central America the largest lake is that of Nicaragua, nearly equal to Ontario in extent, and only one hundred and thirty-one feet above the level of the sea. (See further under the respective countries of North America.)

=Climate.=--Largely determined by the direction of the mountain ranges. Five climatic regions, viz., an arctic region, whose mean temperature is less than thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit; an Atlantic temperate region, extending as far as the Mississippi, with abundant rains and dense woods; an inland temperate region, dry, with steppes or prairies; a Pacific coast region, and a tropical region.

=Political Divisions.=--The political divisions of North America are:

(1) Danish America,[8] which includes Greenland and three small islands of the Virgin group in the West Indies.

[8] The Danish West Indies were transferred to the sovereignty of the United States in 1917 at the purchase price of twenty-five million dollars.

(2) British North America, in which division we may place the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, Labrador, the Bermudas, the numerous British West Indian islands, and British Honduras.

(3) The United States, including the detached territory of Alaska.

(4) Mexico.

(5) The Central American republics of Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, together with Panama--unless its southern part be regarded as belonging to the South American continent.

(6) The West Indian republics of Hayti and San Domingo.

(7) The Dutch West Indies.

(See the articles on the separate states and colonies.)

THE UNITED STATES

The republic of the United States is by far the most populous, wealthy, and progressive country of all the New World.

=Location and Extent.=--It occupies the most valuable portion of the North American continent, the whole of it (with the exception of the territory of Alaska) lying within the temperate zone, between Canada on the north and Mexico on the south, and reaching across from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Its boundary toward the Canadian Dominion passes through the Haro, or northern channel of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, south of Vancouver Island, and thence along the forty-ninth parallel of latitude to Lake Superior; then midway through the center of the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence, and down that river to the forty-fifth parallel, and an irregular boundary which separates New Brunswick from the States of New York and Maine, terminating at Passamaquoddy Bay.

In the south, the Mexican frontier runs from the Pacific coast, northward of the peninsula of California, to the Rio Grande del Norte, which it follows to the Gulf of Mexico.

From Atlantic to Pacific, the breadth of the United States is not less than twenty-five hundred miles; and from north to south the country extends nearly seventeen hundred miles.

=Surface.=--The surface of the United States from east to west may be divided as follows: (1) The Atlantic Plain, which extends from the coast to the Allegheny Mountains. (2) The Mississippi Valley and Great Central Plain, which extends from the Allegheny Mountains west to the Rocky Mountains. (3) The Western Highlands. (4) The Pacific slope, which extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

=Mountains and Plains.=--The chief mountain systems are the Appalachian region in the east and the Rocky Mountains in the west.

THE APPALACHIAN SYSTEM begins in the northern part of New England (in Maine without the appearance of regular ranges) and New York, and extends southwestward to Alabama and Georgia, being divided by the Hudson River valley and Lake Champlain, and that of the Mohawk River into three distinct sections.

A coast-plain extends from its eastern base to the Atlantic. It is narrow in Maine, where it terminates in a bold rocky coast indented by bays, and broken into projecting promontories and islands. South of Massachusetts the coast becomes lower and more sandy, and the plain grows gradually wider, with the exception of a narrow belt at New York, until in North Carolina it attains a width of two hundred miles.

In the southern part of New England it is characterized by hills, and below New York by a distinct coast region and a more elevated slope. This higher region, which is in Virginia and thence southward, is marked by a somewhat abrupt terrace, varies in altitude from a few hundred to more than a thousand feet, and is known as the Piedmont plateau. The lower coast region is seldom more than one hundred feet above the sea. It has a sandy soil, and in many places there are large swamps near the coast. Much of this swampy country is uninhabitable, but when reclaimed, as it has been in many parts of North and South Carolina, it makes valuable rice-land. Many acres of fertile agricultural land have also been secured in Florida by draining its swamps. The middle elevated region is diversified by hills and valleys, and has a productive soil. The dividing line between it and the low coast-plain marks the head of navigation of most of the streams, and also determines the sites of many important towns.

The surface of this region today is a series of parallel ranges divided by fertile valleys. The various ridges are named as follows: The Blue Ridge, which lies nearest the Atlantic; the Kittatinny Chain; the Allegheny Mountains, which lie in the western part of Virginia and the central part of Pennsylvania; the Cumberland Mountains, on the eastern boundary of Tennessee and Kentucky; the Catskill Mountains, in the State of New York, which are continued in the Sacondago Chain; the Green Mountains, in the State of Vermont; the Hudson River Highlands, and the hills of New Hampshire. There is no peak of marked elevation in the Appalachian region, the highest point being Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire, which reaches a height of nearly seven thousand feet.

GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN.--West of the Appalachian system and lying between it and the western highland is a great central valley, forming part of the continental depression which extends from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. It is almost an absolute plain, rising gradually from the Gulf toward the chain of Great Lakes in the north, and toward the mountains on the east and west. The only important departure from its uniform level character is an elevation of from five hundred to two thousand feet, running from southern Missouri through northwestern Arkansas into eastern Oklahoma, and known as the Ozark Mountains.

This great valley occupies about one-half the entire area of the United States, and the fertile prairies and bottom-lands of the eastern and central portions make it the most important agricultural basin of the globe. From an irregular line west of the Mississippi River the land rises in an almost imperceptible slope till it reaches the base of the western plateau.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SYSTEM extends a distance of about two thousand miles. The system is continued in Canada. The Rocky Mountains are not a single range, but are double and sometimes threefold. These ranges are the edge of a region of plateaus and hills which extends to the coastal mountains. The chief mountain ranges belonging to the United States Rockies are the Bitter Root Mountains, the Blue Mountains, and the Big Horn Mountains in the north; the Wahsatch Mountains, the Wind River Mountains, and the White Mountains in the center; and the Sierra Madre and the Sangra de Cristo Range in the south. In the western part of the southern Rockies lies the Great Basin of Colorado, with the Wahsatch Mountains on the east and the Sierra Nevada on the west. This basin is extremely arid, has suffered much volcanic action.

THE WESTERN OR PACIFIC SYSTEM forms a part of the vast elevation which extends from the northern to the southern extremity of the western continent. In the United States it is a great plateau of four thousand to ten thousand feet surmounted by a complex system of ranges, in its widest part more than one thousand miles broad. Of this Cordilleran region the Rocky Mountains form the eastern and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains and the Coast Ranges the western border.

In the ranges of central Colorado alone nearly forty of the summits have an altitude of more than fourteen thousand feet. In the Wind River Mountains, in Wyoming, are the head-waters of the Colorado, the Columbia, and the Mississippi, the three great river-systems of the United States; and in the northwestern corner of the same state is situated the National Park, famous for its hot springs and geysers as well as for its magnificent scenery (see Yellowstone).

Between the Wahsatch Range and the lofty masses of mountains in Colorado is a region of peculiar interest, consisting of level plateaus in which the changes of elevation from one plain to another are marked by abrupt descents and steep cliffs. It is furrowed by cañons or gorges, whose sides are nearly vertical; and the bed of the Colorado is in some places more than a mile and a quarter below the surface of the plateau. (See Grand Cañon under Colorado River.)

Between the Wahsatch Range and the Sierra Nevada lies the Great Basin, an immense tract having at best but little rainfall, except upon the summits of the ranges by which it is traversed, and none of whose waters are drained to either ocean. The saline swamps, salt lakes, and sinks of Nevada indicate the former location of one of these lakes; Great Salt Lake is all that now remains of the other.

The Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range are topographically continuous, and constitute a great mountain-wall, which so far as the height of the peaks and the grandeur of the scenery are concerned, is one of the most striking portions of the Cordilleran system. Most of the peaks of the Sierras are, however, of granite and metamorphic rock, while those of the Cascade Range are volcanic. The greatest altitude is attained with Mt. Whitney as the culminating point. The lofty character of the range is maintained throughout the greater part of California, and the sublimity of the scenery is justly celebrated. (See Yosemite Valley.)

From this point there extends northward one of the most remarkable groups of extinct or faintly active volcanoes to be found anywhere in the world: the lava overflows in this region cover an area of above two hundred thousand square miles. The most prominent peaks are Mt. Shasta, in California, and Mt. Rainier, in Washington. In three separate places rivers have cut a passage through the volcanic portion of the range. The most notable is the passage of the Columbia River in a grand cañon more than three thousand feet in depth.

The Coast Ranges of Washington, Oregon, and northern California consist of numerous and approximately parallel chains, which as a rule pitch off abruptly toward the sea, leaving no coast-plain. Between the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range is a series of broad valleys, occupied mainly in Oregon by the Willamette River, and in California by the Sacramento and San Joaquin. In southern California the mountains of the Coast Ranges diminish in height, but throughout their whole extent they are interspersed with picturesque and fertile valleys.

=Coast.=--The Atlantic coast has a length of about twelve thousand three hundred and sixty miles; the Gulf Coast of five thousand seven hundred and fifty miles, and the Pacific Coast of three thousand two hundred and fifty miles.

On the coast of the New England states there are many indentations which, though small, furnish commodious harbors. Long Island Sound adds greatly to the commercial importance of New York harbor, and farther south are Delaware and Chesapeake Bays; Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, and several small indentations, such as those which form the harbors of Charleston and Savannah. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest indentation of the Atlantic Coast and runs inland in a northward direction for more than one hundred and eighty miles, with an average breadth of about fifteen miles. From Cape Hatteras to Cape Sable, however, the coast is swampy, and, especially in Florida, fringed with lagoons. The harbors of this part of the coast are not good naturally. The coast of the Gulf of Mexico is low and very swampy, but is of special climatic and commercial importance.

The Pacific Coast of the United States has a very narrow Continental Shelf, and few bays or capes. With the exception of Puget Sound, the Bay of San Francisco, and the harbor of San Diego, there is scarcely a noticeable break in the continuity of the coast line.

=Islands.=--There are many small rocky islands along the coast of Maine, and on the southern New England Coast is a group to which belongs Long Island, the largest of the islands of the United States. Farther south, off the Atlantic Coast, and also in portions of the Gulf of Mexico, are many low sand-spits lying parallel to the coast and having behind them shallow channels, lagoons and swamps. On the Pacific Coast there are no islands of importance except the Santa Barbara group off the southern coast of California.

=Rivers.=--The rivers of the Atlantic Plain rise in the Appalachian system, and are comparatively short. In many cases they are too rapid to be of much value for navigation, but are valuable for supplying water power. These rivers almost without exception have good harbors at their mouths. The chief are: the Hudson, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Savannah.

THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAIN is drained by the Mississippi-Missouri river system, the basin of which covers half the area of the United States, and is equal in area to about one-third the area of Europe.

The Mississippi rises in Lake Itasca, in Minnesota, at about fifteen hundred feet above sea-level. After flowing for about one hundred miles in an easterly direction it turns south, and is joined by numerous tributaries. The chief are: St. Peter’s River, which joins the main stream nine miles above St. Anthony’s Falls; the Missouri, which enters the Mississippi just above St. Louis; the Ohio, which joins the main river at Cairo; the Arkansas, the Wisconsin, the Illinois, and the Red River.

The Mississippi-Missouri has made a broad flood plain, varying in width from thirty to sixty miles. This plain is subject to severe inundations, for it slopes very gently away from the river bed, which is in many parts of the river above the level of the surrounding plain. The river carries a vast amount of silt, which it deposits at its mouth, thus forming a delta which stretches a series of long, narrow, tentacle-like arms seaward.

Other rivers falling into the Gulf of Mexico are the Mobile and the Rio Grande. The Mobile, which enters the gulf at the town of Mobile, is the union of the Alabama and the Tombigbee. The Rio Grande forms the boundary between Texas and Mexico.

The rivers flowing into the Pacific are comparatively short, owing to the nearness of the coast ranges to the sea. The Colorado River flows into the Gulf of California, after crossing an arid plateau. (See description below.)

The San Joaquin and the Sacramento rivers unite and flow into the harbor of San Francisco; these and the Columbia are the only important rivers entering the Pacific.

The Great Basin of California is largely an area of inland drainage. The rivers flow into lakes with no outlets to the sea.

=Colorado River= (Spanish for “red” or “reddish”), is a remarkable river formed by the union of the Grand and Green Rivers, and flowing through the great plateau region. Below the junction of the Green and Grand, the main affluent in Utah is the San Juan, which drains an interesting region in the southwest of Colorado and the northwest of New Mexico. In Arizona the main affluents are the Colorado Chiquito or Flax River, the Bill Williams, and the Rio Gila, all from the left. The only important affluent the Colorado receives from the right is the Rio Virgen. From the junction of the Grand and Green the general course of the stream is to the southwest through the southern part of Utah and northwestern Arizona; and it afterwards separates Arizona from Nevada and California. The lower part of its course is in Mexican territory, where it flows into the northern extremity of the Gulf of California.

The most striking features of the Colorado basin are its dryness, and the deeply channeled surface of the greater part of the country. Almost every stream and watercourse, and most of all the Colorado itself, has cut its way through stratum after stratum of rock, until now it flows in a great part of its course, at the bottom of a deep trench or cañon.

THE GRAND CAÑON.--The main stream, for nearly four hundred miles below the mouth of the Colorado Chiquito, thus makes its way through a great plateau, forming what is called the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, the most extensive and marvelous example of the kind anywhere known.